by Lyndsay Faye
“Mon Dieu,” Mam’zelle chuckles as she studies Lia, beringed fingers intertwining. “She already understands it.”
“Four-dimensional space-time? Yeah.” Lia laughs. “I do. Somebody taught me. So who are you, then?”
Maw-maw flashes a devilish grin. “We see the foul and turn it fair, hover through fog and filthy air. Sometimes the other way around. We have many names. We are the apportioners, the destinies.”
“Maw-maw, I love you, but can we do this in English please?”
Both Maw-maw and Lia are surprised to find this statement of affection perfectly true. Reaching across the table, they briefly grasp hands. Lia would be marveling at her own understanding, and still more shocked by her easy acceptance. But hardly anything can surprise you after it makes sense that a bouquet can twist the shape of Fate.
Moma finishes her coffee. “My sister speaks true, her. The circle is closed. But it begins again and again. Multitudes.”
“Multiverses,” Lia translates, marveling.
“As you say. We travel them with you, teasing out their rightful shape.”
“And that Robin Goodfellow dickweed?”
Mam’zelle laughs. “He walks the opposite side of the circle, chouchou. Sometimes, we win the day. Other times, il reussit. We’ve known that rascal . . . well, time as such does not apply. We are locked in battle. Each circuit for us involves different wars, both small and great. Matters, they build, they build, et voilà, they conclude. When they are about to conclude, up pops Robin again.”
“Reap the harvest?” Lia glances at Maw-maw, who nods.
“From the beginning to the end, this circle round, we’s us, and he’s him,” Moma explains. “Done been three warriors and the poet, three saints and the leper, three kings and the prophet. Too damn many to name.”
“Three florists and the event coordinator?”
“Sure enough, baby girl.”
“And . . . not to oversimplify this, but are you the good guys?”
Maw-maw brushes the salt onto her saucer. “Yes. No. We create, he destroys. Or the other way around. He weaves disasters, we unmake them. Or we craft gardens, and he razes them. We are order, he is chaos. Or the other way around. We are the fucked, and he is the fucker. Or the other—”
“Maw-maw, tais-toi!” Mam’zelle yells.
“On my life, you will take your pills if I gotta push them down your gullet, me,” Moma snaps.
“I’ll count them every morning from the bottle, my sister, tu vois?”
Lia wonders if hiding behind her hands will disguise the fact she’s helpless with laughter. Probably not. Her shoulders are shaking.
“Robin right now, he’s the Needleman.” Moma glares daggers at her sister. “Back in N’awlins, from our time, folk were much afeared of the needle men. They was studying to be doctors, but said to come by night to Black graves and steal their bones to cut apart and sew up again. Anatomists, you’d call them nowadays, but they was body thieves what stole and stitched under sickle moons. Some of that was gospel, some of it weren’t, but best way to describe that sorry-ass scallywag is he’s the Needleman. He sews crazy quilts. We put them back into whole cloth.”
“It’s our lot to stop his goings-on.” Mam’zelle sighs. “Come to that, chère, do you know what answer you’ll make to him?”
“About what?”
“Which side of the circle you wanna walk,” Moma replies.
Lia considers the first gallery exhibits the sisters probably magicked into happening for her.
“That was never really a question,” she says. “You’re stuck with me. Like . . . floral tape.”
The sisters smile as one creature. It’s possible they are, it occurs to Lia.
Who could say?
“I don’t like what’s in my mind, me.” Moma takes the long mass of her braids, wraps it around her skinny wrist, and ties it on her shoulder. “That Robin, we know him of old. And we might weave half the tapestry, Robin the other half. But ain’t no weaver alive as knows exactly what it’ll look like hanging on the wall. No matter how many times they’ve settled themselves down at a loom. Endings have a mind of their own.”
Nodding, Lia thinks of every art installation she’s ever created. A gust of wind or a change in mood will affect the outcome.
“This bouquet you done finished for Miss Jessica?” Moma nods at it. “You made real good on this.”
Lia can’t believe she’s blushing. “You haven’t even looked at it.”
Moma winks. The gentleman who brought them coffee tasting oddly of chicory presents the bill, and Mam’zelle produces a pink calfskin wallet. Lia lolls her head, contemplating the chandelier. It wouldn’t look out of place in Versailles except that it’s blessed by a hearty layer of dust. It reminds her, in a dingier sense, of Trudy’s clock collection. Trudy is nearly as preoccupied by time as her son—she just fetishizes it in another way entirely. Both mother and child are ferociously aware of the clock ticking. Ben deals with this by picking at the concept like a tiny wound, Trudy by deafening herself under its influence.
“I don’t know why Dad had those pictures of Claude and Trudy,” she says. “But it’s safe to assume Robin was determined to out them as lovers. Why, do you think?”
Mam’zelle checks her lipstick in a silver compact. “Je ne sais pas, chère. But he was sitting next to your friend Horatio on the plane flight here from London town, we found out at our conference this morning.”
“That’s who he was talking about? The one he called bloodsick?” Lia exclaims. “Wait, how—no, no. Horatio is here, Horatio left? Why would Horatio ever leave, he loves . . .”
It’s not quite possible for Lia to say it here in New York instead of Ben. Lia watched Horatio love Ben for years and could never pity him—partly because Horatio was the most self-made person she’d ever met. But also because he carried it as if he knew he was born to do so. Some men would have unfurled their battle flag hearts, demand that Ben choose. Some would have severed ties, cut losses. Not Horatio. He’d glance warmly at Lia as if they worshipped the same sports team or followed the same band. Did you hear what that idiot just said? his eyes would ask, and Lia would roll hers. They loved each other dearly. They were the first ones out of their chairs with Sharpies to write drunken quotations on the wall board. The more ridiculous, the better, his handwriting angular capitals and hers flowing script. Lia wished she understood Ben’s mind the way he did, the labyrinths and the whims; Horatio wished he were the one gentling him out of consciousness, sweetly sore and satiated. None of it mattered. They were partners. Allies in a common war against tragedy.
“What were you up to last night, when you didn’t come home?” Lia asks, shocked at this news.
Moma coughs lightly. “Scheming and dreaming, baby. Finishing the tapestry. Figuring what’s best to do.”
“Mam’zelle, you said that bloodsickness could get people killed,” she recalls, pulse thumping. “When Robin was talking about it.”
“I did at that, and so it does, too.”
Not Ben or Horatio, though.
Please, for the love of God, let our side win.
“Why, you’re shivering—somebody’s just walked over our Lia’s grave.” Moma’s fingertips brush Lia’s cheek. “What’s the matter, baby girl?”
“Oh, nothing, it’s just . . . mortal terror.”
“Of what, chère?” Mam’zelle asks.
“Mortality. I . . . have a deep fear of losing things. People. I’ve lost enough.”
“You have at that,” Moma concurs.
“Loss visits all,” Maw-maw reminds them.
“May we live every day till we don’t,” Mam’zelle concludes, nodding.
I’ll help you, Lia thinks in the vague direction of Ben and Horatio. Not that I know how yet.
But I’m learning.
Moma offers he
r hands on either side, as does Mam’zelle. Lia does the same. When Maw-maw completes the circle, something in Lia softly breaks.
Sometimes breaking, though, doesn’t feel brittle or cracked. Sometimes breaking feels like new, green shoots sprouting up through old, dead detritus.
* * *
• • •
The flower shop greets Lia as if she’s a sleek predator and this is her personal jungle. Bamboo leaves flicker hello at her from within their ceramic dwellings, and the orchids smile with purple lips. It’s always been this way. A question has been growing in her along the entire journey home, and as the women walk up the stairs, Lia decides to ask.
It’s the most important one, after all.
“So,” Lia attempts as they set their purses down upstairs. “Uh, this is awkward. Thank you for telling me what—no, sorry! Thank you for telling me who you are. And who Robin is.”
The sisters turn to her like flowers to the daylight.
“But . . . who does that make me, then?” Lia manages through a tight throat.
“Oh, chouchou,” Mam’zelle says.
“Sweet baby girl,” commiserates Moma.
Shuffling across the room, Maw-maw takes her face in both calloused hands. Her eyes are a strange but clear grey-brown and they extend back through her head for many long miles.
“Sufficient for tomorrow are the evils thereof.”
Somehow, Lia makes it to the third floor. Rummaging in her small closet, she finds the nearest thing to black tie she still has, but the gown at least is a particular favorite. She’ll wear it tonight. And every single threadbare sentiment about serenity she’s ever learned will be put to the test.
Ben. You said, in the dream, you still loved me even though we can never be together.
Tonight we’ll find out what that means.
But once she’s steamed her dress and hung it with care against the shower curtain, Lia feels an irresistible urge to close her eyes. So she climbs onto the soft bed in her dragon’s cave/princess tower, sets her phone alarm, and falls into a very deep—but hardly dreamless—sleep.
HORATIO
Now I’ve been crazy couldn’t you tell
I threw stones at the stars but the whole sky fell . . .
—Gregory Alan Isakov, “The Stable Song”
Whatever Horatio Ramesh Patel expects to happen upon returning to their flat several hours before the gala the morning after Benjamin presented him with a vegetarian buffet and his heart on a platter, he is dead wrong.
He’s still furious. But the idea of failing Benjamin bleeds him dry as fumes. Horatio hangs up his keys in the empty sitting room. They’ve plentiful time for the fussing with cravats and cummerbunds, and his friend is home—the shower is running.
“Benjamin,” Horatio calls toward the bathroom. “Hullo?”
Feet aching, he sinks onto the couch. He never really planned to scarper off again. But he needed time without being cajoled, wheedled, teased, or any of the other things at which Benjamin excels. At first, he walked—past a dozen shoe repair stalls and a hundred banks and a million drugstores. Thinking. Then he tried Central Park, with the grass sheep used to graze on tickling his back. Thinking. Then a scabby motel smelling faintly of stale cigarettes. Still thinking.
Love is clutter and you are a diagnosed hoarder, he recalls concluding as he drifted off at last.
Love is about as useful as a thirty-year-old atlas.
“What the hell are you doing, you daft thing?” he moans, forearms on his knees. “Shaving your bloody legs? And did you think earlier to put extra Bernardo’s coffee in the fridge like we used to do?”
After three minutes, Horatio is stroppy, because Benjamin can hear him perfectly well in there, based upon years of experimentation. After five, he is hurt: Hadn’t his friend wanted him back rather badly?
At the six-minute mark, a jolt of adrenaline shocks him.
He flies off the sofa, slamming against the door. “Benjamin, answer me!”
The patter of precipitation continues uninterrupted. But the door handle turns when he clutches it, so Horatio warns, “Oi, I’m coming in there,” and shoulders through.
What he sees is so precisely identical to what he’d always imagined, the déjà vu stuns him. The shower runs without steam, and Benjamin is curled up in the far corner, dead, so this is the way the world ends, and his shed clothing is smeared with scarlet.
Horatio dives forward, clutching thin, cool arms.
“Benjamin! Benjamin, answer me for god’s sake.”
The water beats down on his shoulders. Horatio hunches forward, and Benjamin does nothing at all.
“Please no, please, you wanted—I thought you wanted . . .”
The sound ripped from his own throat stops his words. He tilts Benjamin’s head back, checking for a pulse, and it’s not too late, call 999, no it’s 911, they can still do things, Christ please, please, when Benjamin gasps, splutters, and smacks Horatio straight in the face as he flails to life.
Horatio lands on his arse, gaping.
“What have you done?” he cries. “Yes, ambulance, right, where is my—”
“No!” A bleary Benjamin scrambles for the taps. “Ooooh, lord that’s cold! No ambulance, I’m fine, I’m fine.”
“Is this an overdose or, or an attempt, there is blood, Benjamin, on your—”
“Dammit, dammit, so cold.” Benjamin twists the flow off and scrapes the water from his face. He’s a white rat caught in a storm drain. “Drop the phone, Horatio, there was, sorry . . . it . . .”
“It what?”
“I fell asleep. Finally.”
“Asleep, you thundering nob, what in hell—”
“Stop, stop, stop. See the bottle of scotch up there with the shampoo? Just got kinda tired. Shocked, shocked and tired. The shock part lasted pretty much all of last night from what I can remember. There was an, uh, a thing happened right after you left, a shocking one. But I feel better now.”
Horatio breathes like he just finished the Tour de France. There Benjamin is in the tub with a flagging Lagavulin bottle displayed above his brainless head and a pile of gore-stained togs in the corner. Rolling to his own knees, Horatio sets his palms on the porcelain to see for himself, eyes darting everywhere, but yes, fantastic, no one has any stab wounds.
“What were you doing?” Horatio snaps.
Benjamin slowly comes to his senses. “Last night? Hyperventilating, mainly. Just now? Dreaming, actually.”
“Oh. Well, then. Was it nice?”
“Parts of it. Not all, it had its moments. Yep.”
Horatio is the first to realize that they’re on their knees facing each other over a foot-high barrier and the Dane heir is spectacularly nude, collarbones dripping, but decides the less said the better.
Benjamin shakes his short hair like a fifties pinup model. The madman in the shower does smell of excellent scotch. And is breathing normally. Horatio can tell both because their faces are not so very far apart.
Inches, Horatio thinks. Lifetimes.
Benjamin settles back on his heels. “Shit. Are you OK, man?”
“Ah. Well. You gave me a bit of a scare.”
“Yeah, I think there’s a reason it’s called having a shower beer and not a shower . . . bottle. I was in, uh, there’s. A situation.”
“What sort?”
“The bad sort.”
A gallows laugh breaks free. “I should very much say so, yes.”
Horatio would like to simply collapse. But he’s distracted. Benjamin hasn’t been eating, which means a droplet has settled in the curve of his clavicle. It’s important that he catalogue this for some reason. Dragging seconds later, Benjamin’s head tilts.
“I owe you another apology. You’re like, very wet,” he says, smiling.
“So are you.”
/> “Touché.”
“Right.”
“That was really lame of me, but please don’t assume I did it on purpose?”
“Perish the thought. What were you dreaming of?”
“Some . . . pretty important shit, actually. One of the, the vivid ones. But it’ll all come out in the wash tonight, I think. Don’t you worry.”
“Me, worry?”
Horatio prepares to rise. It’s a good job that Benjamin Dane is nothing if not clever. Because Horatio is a fossilized creature. But his friend is a very active one.
After another few slow blinks, Benjamin grabs his shirtfront, slotting their mouths together.
Horatio wonders how many people, medically speaking, have suffered two separate heart attacks in as many minutes, for completely different causes. He can’t imagine heaps of such individuals exist. He is now one of their number. They ought to form a society. Benjamin keeps making breathy sounds, nipping and nuzzling for response against his lips like a lost puppy.
Something cracks, leaving a silt of hopes and dreams on the wet tile. It’s too much and too suddenly. Horatio doesn’t back away, but he does angle his face aside. Benjamin gives an mmph that’s absolutely devastating.
“This is, um,” Horatio attempts with his eyes resolutely shut, “a bad idea.”
Benjamin huffs, against his temple now. “Come on, give me a break, you were always totally shit at chastity. What’s that one called again?”
“Brahmacharya. No, not . . . oh god . . . not for religious reasons.”
“Horatio,” Benjamin intones against his eyelashes, “if we don’t get this out of our systems now, before the gala, what’s going to happen to me when you’re back in that tuxedo?”
Horatio swallows.
Sod it.
Bloodsickness is meant to be fatal anyhow.
“There you are, yes yes,” Benjamin gasps when Horatio parts his lips for him. Shaking, cold hands come up to circle his neck, the thumbs against his thorax, and Horatio doesn’t know whether to laugh or sob. Both seem dodgy options, so he keeps kissing his friend, heart in his mouth, for long minutes, maybe it’s hours, it’s till Benjamin shudders softly. He pulls back but only to roll their foreheads together. He was exactly like this before, Horatio remembers—playful but grateful. As if the hated schoolkid was still in there and couldn’t believe his luck.
